The structure and degree of order in soft matter and other materials is intimately connected to the nature of the interactions between the particles. One important research goal is to find suitable control mechanisms, to enhance or suppress different structures. Using dynamical density functional theory, we investigate the interplay between external shear and the characteristic length scales in the interparticle correlations of a model system. We show that shear can controllably change the characteristic length scale from one to another quite distinct value. Moreover, with specific small changes in the form of the particle interactions, the applied shear can either selectively enhance or suppress the different characteristic wavelengths of the system, thus showing how to tune these. Our results suggest that the nonlinear response to flow can be harnessed to design different actively responsive materials.

中文翻译：

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对剪切软物质中长度尺度的分子相互作用的敏感依赖性

软物质和其他材料的结构和有序度与粒子之间相互作用的性质紧密相关。一个重要的研究目标是找到合适的控制机制，以增强或抑制不同的结构。使用动态密度泛函理论，我们研究了模型系统的粒子间相关性中外部剪切力和特征长度尺度之间的相互作用。我们表明，剪切力可以将特征长度尺度从一个可控制地改变为另一个非常不同的值。此外，通过粒子相互作用形式的特定小变化，所施加的剪切力可以选择性地增强或抑制系统的不同特征波长，从而显示出如何调整这些波长。